Paralyzed Reader

I have a confession to make. I'm a paralyzed reader. That is to say, my "to be read" (TBR) pile has reached such staggering heights that I'm overrun by choices and consequently paralyzed by indecision.

I've been reading The New Yorkers: A Novel, by Cathleen Schine, but I got stalled when I had to finish my thesis revisions and write the paper for my Lit. Theory class this past week. What started as a quaint foray into a NYC neighborhood full of quirky characters now seems like a slog. But, it's a review book from a publisher, so I have to finish it. And, in all honesty, I think it'll be OK if I can JUST GET BACK INTO IT!

But, beyond the one book at hand, there are a zillion more waiting to take its place. I have classics, I have contemporary literary fiction, I have trash, I have children's/YA books, I have memoirs and non-fiction piled on top of memoirs and more non-fiction. The especially forward, headstrong books have been climbing out of the shelves at night, hopping into bed with me, snuggling up and whispering in my ears to "pick me! pick me!". I put them back in the morning and go back to my indecision.

I'm sick of horrible TV and there's nothing I'd rather do than read. But. I. Can't.

Some people call this "The English Major Curse." I call it "Driving Me Stark Raving Mad."

I hope it subsides soon.

I'll be housesitting for one of my professors this weekend (Saturday-Monday). She has a fantastic house and a loooovely pool, so I plan to find a floaty and read while I'm catching some rays. I'll be around a computer at some point, but I would imagine I'll be waterlogged for the majority of the weekend.

*Note: Pictured above, the ever-so-square secretary from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. But you, cool reader, already knew that, I'm sure. She looks stunned by indecision doesn't she?

On Writing...

I've always attempted journaling but I can't say that I've had very good luck. There are journals piled around here everywhere, some of them full, some half-full, some sporadically drawn and written in. Doodles, phrases...sentences if they're lucky. Periods of manic scribbling and years of silence.

My computer has become more of a journal than any bound volume could've ever hoped. I can type much faster than I write. In light of this simultanous compulsion to write and total lack of consistency, my computer has lots of little bits of me floating around in it. I write snatches...thoughts that seem particularly poetic or promising. Blips of frustration. Collections of mild insanity. Since I can't sleep, I was reading through some of my niblets and found a diatribe on writing short stories.....

I don’t particularly like short stories. They’re premature novels…brain puffs that never got loved into life. They’re the angsty teenagers of the literary world standing bold and defiant amidst authorities but really longing for love and maturity. Maybe I’m just bitter because I’m no Flannery O’Connor or Annie Proulx. I’m not even a second-rate John Grisham or Dan Brown. Maybe I’m just mad because I don’t think I have a good short story in me. A friend says we all have one novel in us. I happen to know I have four novels in me, but short stories…I don’t feel those knocking on the inside of my head antsy to be loosed upon the world. The novels are insistent. Bratty even. They claw and scratch and scramble. Short stories don’t whip themselves up in my head. They don’t jump around like magic beans..

I feel like I should write short stories. Shouldn’t I crawl before I walk? And that’s a cliché I wouldn’t put into a short story unless it was a particularly naughty one that I felt needed punishing. If I wrote a short story I’d want it to be gritty. Completely unlike me in every visible way. I would step half out of myself. I would put the academian aside and embrace my past. The one I don’t think about too often. I would embrace my upbringing. The one that most “refined” people would hope I’d find embarrassing. The Texas’ness in me. The street dances and the rodeos. The smell of cow shit globbed on the foot rail at the stockyards. Grease and rocks and fried fish. Baby rabbits in shoe boxes—a surprise from my grandpa. Crawfishing with bacon on a string, my grandmother chasing my cousin around with a cigarette in one hand and a flyswatter in the other. “Y’all” and “yesterdy night” and horses and trail rides and thunderstorms. The dirtiest, most precious station wagon on the planet. Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, Sr., and Big Red soda. My ancestors would kick my country girl ass for calling it soda.

And then I went back to work on a short story that I've left languishing, loveless for a year or more.

PhD: Good News and Bad News

Which would you like first? OK, everyone always wants the good news first.

Good: I got accepted to the PhD program in Illinois (first choice).

Bad: They did not offer me an assistantship. Yet. I've been waitlisted.

Now, I should explain that I'm incredibly relieved, pissed, and conflicted...all at once.

I'm relieved that I was accepted at all because apparently it was a very competitive year. I'm pissed because the lack of assistantship is a kick in the crotch. I will be unable to attend if they don't come through because I refuse to go another 50,000 dollars in debt by paying out-of-state tuition. I'm relieved because if they don't come through I can turn the offer down without guilt and without letting Thesis Director down.

Those of you who have been following this crazy graduate school debacle for the last almost-two-years know that I'm rather burned out.

Very. Burned. Out.

There are other things going on in my life that are exciting...aside from the PhD possibilities. Estella's Revenge is truckin' right along, I'm having A LOT of ideas for writing projects (a book idea, review stuff, etc. etc.), and there's a man in my life who I'd love to be with. In short, a normal life is looking really good right now. Get a job. Pay off loans. Buy a house. Start a family.

The niggling elitist in the back of my head keeps screaming, "TERMINAL DEGREE!!!!! If you get a PhD you will have gone as far as one can go in terms of degrees!" I keep trying to squelch that fuckin' annoying voice to get to what I really want.

I really want the freedom of the normal life. As exhilarating as academia can be, the reality is that I will have to live this crazy, insane, exhausting, break-neck life for at least another 10 years if I get the PhD and go into a tenure-track position. 4 years for the PhD, and at least six to get tenure. Thinking about it sort of makes me want to die.

It's all scary.

Edit: Perhaps I should clarify the use of the word "normal." It is certainly not a negative thing, in my opinion. And I highly doubt anyone would count the life of a graduate student (filled with obscure philosophy, all-night drinking parties, rampant fornication, professional depression, etc. etc.) normal or necessarily healthy.

The Life of the Boring

Nothin' shakin' around here to speak of. I should've graded papers today: didn't. I should've re-read some stuff for Thursday: didn't. I should've done anything productive: didn't. I did get a BookMooch book--Getting Stoned with Savages (J. Maarten Troost)--and started reading that!!!

I (not so) patiently waited for the mail today just to be disappointed at the lack of PhD letter. Of course, I also dread the PhD letter because if I get accepted I have some exceedingly painful, horrible decisions to make. It sucks being a grownup.

I think I'll toss any and all previous dreams and simply be an escapist.

Fiji, anyone?

I promise....

• To never again half-ass my writing (unless it's a blog-post-in-a-jiffy)
• To read for fun and choose good books
• To seek out opportunities and take them instead of procrastinating and sabotaging myself
• To forego a Ph.D. if I'm too emotionally and mentally fried to handle it right now
• To do good things for the world at large (campaign for Barack Obama, maybe?)
• To get laid sooner than later (maybe not the loftiest goal, but it might help curb my bitchiness)

Today's list brought to you by the fact that I might not finish my thesis this semester. I think Jeremy, Elise, and I are all realizing that it might not be a possibility to finish up right now. We're strapped with taking classes, teaching classes, and general political department bullshit that can't be avoided. I could still graduate in the summer. I don't want to half-ass this project. It upsets me, but perhaps it's the smart thing to do.

Listening: "God's Gonna Cut You Down"...Johnny Cash